FUNERALS DURING EPIDEMIC.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LVI, Issue 17179, 5 June 1919, Page 8

FUNERALS DURING EPIDEMIC.

UNDERTAKERS' CLAIMS UNPAID.

Accounts rendered bv Wellington undertakers to the Health Department for interments during the influenza epidemic have not yet been paid. A report on the matter was recently made to the Wellington Hospital Board by its Charitable Aid Committee, as follows —"It appears that during the epidemic the Mayor of Wellington instructed various undertakers that they were to attend to interments, and that they eould bo sure of payment'. The cir cumstancea of the transfer of liability from the Mayor to the Department of Public Health are obscure, but it seems clear that i the Department either promised to pay or guaranteed that payment would be mado in the cases of all undertakers' accounts where 'payment is repudiated mi the score of inability to pay, or where there are no relatives to whom the account can be sent." Claims from some nine undertaking firms were ultimately sent in to the Department, representing some 247 burials and an aggregate sum of £2500. On February 25, 1919, the Public Health Department wroto to the board, advising that the Minister had decided ' in cases whero the deceased left no estate and there are no relatives able to pay, the Department will pay for the burials at £5 5s each, plus cemetery fees.' As the usual cemetery fee in Wellington is IBs, the rate may be. regarded as £6 per funeral. At the same time the Department, handed over to the board all tho claims and papers connected therewith. The letter made no reference to tho contingency of the claimants refusing to accept the rate named. On April 8 the Charitable Aid Committee decided that steps should bo taken to ascertain whether the claimants were prepared to accept tho proposed rate, and a letter was written lo each. Replies have been received which show that the claimants ore quite unwilling to accept these terms. An examination of the claims and conversation with one of the claimants show that the task of ascertaining the merits of each case on the lines of tho Department's letter would be one which it would be impossible for the charitable aid branch to undertake in addition to its present work. The differenco between the amount claimed and that fixed by tho Public Health Department is between £900 and £1000."

The committee therefore, recommended that "as the board had no hand in tho ordering of these funerals, and finds it to be practically impossible to obtain proof of circumstances, it regrets its inability to deal with the matter." The board baa not jet reached a decision on tie matter.